


Taking His Measure

by annchi



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Community: Meme of Interest, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 11:57:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annchi/pseuds/annchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For an anon Finch/Reese prompt on meme_of_interest: <i>Finch/Reese, leg massage. wanted this since "Mission Creep" back in 1st season. and in "Booked solid" Finch had to stand still at the reception desk all day long, that must've been hell.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking His Measure

Harold is sweating and he's moving slowly. It's hard to watch and even harder not to jump up and do something to support him, but Reese stays where he is by the car. Not looking too hard. He slouches to make himself smaller.

At least Bear is there, stopping when Harold does, being so patient that Reese finds himself making a list of things to do with the dog when he takes him out. It's a short list: dog park, the other dog park that's usually too far out of his way, a few extra treats, a few sessions of bite work, which he knows Bear misses, and back to the dog park. He'll stay there until it closes at dusk if Bear wants to. 

Reese flinches when Harold stumbles but Bear is there again, braced under him while he rights himself. 

He didn't fall. At least he didn't fall. Reese won't say anything unless Harold brings it up, and if he does Reese will make a joke about it being a controlled fall into the dog, and nothing to do with his pain or his unsteadiness. His disability. Which they don't mention often, if at all, even when Harold has a very Bad Day, or during the weeks leading up to Bear getting his -- A little unethical, isn't it Finch? -- bright yellow service vest.

Reese comes around to the passenger side of the sedan and makes a fuss about getting Bear settled while Harold uses Reese's elbow and shoulder for support as he lowers himself into the car. He grunts a couple of times, stifled cries of pain, and by the time dog and master are safely inside Reese is sweating too.

Harold isn't driving. Another bad sign, because despite inconvenient city traffic Harold loves to drive. Harold speeds, too. Likes to try out different kinds of cars and SUVs, and Norman Burdett has a couple of friends with taxi medallions who don't mind if he takes their cabs out when they feel like a day off. It's a good cover, Harold told him the first time he picked up Reese in one of the cabs. So useful when we need innocuous transport.

Sure, Reese had said, and something warm settled in his chest while Harold hummed to himself and navigated the city streets. Harold had smiled, bright and pleased, when he finally got the radio to pick up a baseball game, and for a few hours after they took care of the number Harold just drove them around. And it was the ease of driving, the relative freedom it represented, not the novelty of the vehicle or the game or the clear lassitude of the day that brightened Harold's mood. He wasn't a different man, but he was lighter, unfocused. That first time in a cab with Harold was one of their best days.

Today is a Bad Day. The number is safe, they have both earned their rest. But after hours of standing and having to climb up one too many fire escapes Harold wants to go back to the library. 

Reese would rather take him home -- well, to one of Harold's homes. Or to Reese's own apartment, as they have on occasion done. But he knows not to argue. If he argues on a Bad Day, a quiet but infuriated Harold might exit the car at the next intersection and disappear slowly into traffic. 

Want to pick up some food, he asks, and Harold grunts a soft affirmative. 

I'll go after I drop you off, he adds. Because watching Bear and Harold pick their slow, agonizing way up the library steps to the first floor elevator will do Reese in, he knows it will. Harold hums a yes that says he knows it too, and the sudden hand on Reese's knee, the brief pressure and caress, is a gift that Reese will carry with him to and from Tandoori Kitchen. 

It's a gift he asked for a long time ago, the sort that keeps on giving.

I need to know if the pain is serious, Reese said once. You know your limits and I trust you, but if you need help you have to promise to tell me, Finch.

That he said it while looking out a window instead of at Harold didn't signify. The fact that Harold said, Of course, Mr. Reese, to his bank of monitors hadn't mattered either. 

It was how they did things, sometimes. 

A promise is a promise, Mr. Reese. 

Harold never said it, not like that, but the words echo in Reese's head when he jogs back from the restaurant. He feels them in his accelerated heartbeat, and in the ghost of recent pressure on his knee.

He'll tell me. He will tell me. If he needs me, he'll say.

They eat and Reese watches Harold from under his lashes while pretending not to feed Bear under the table. Bear is good about it, still patient, and he's watching Harold too, when he's not licking Reese's fingers clean of rice and spicy sauce, like the dog knows the rules of the game.

Have you finished, Harold asks. I think Bear's had enough in any case. We don't want a repeat of the butter chicken incident, John.

Reese smirks and looks at Bear. The BCI lives in infamy in each of their memories.

I'm done but I'd like to sit a while, he says, and finds it's true: he's in the mood to be lazy, to sit, but he also wants to DO something. Because Harold barely touched his food and there's a tremor, faint but still there, arcing his right hand off the table. 

Tiny blips of adrenaline. The brain pings the muscles after any exertion that could exacerbate the pain associated with or the extent of an injury. Reese remembers it from his own PT. 

He looks at his own hands instead of at Harold's. There's orange sauce in the bed of one fingernail. Reese contemplates his tikka masala and dog-drool covered fingers and decides he's had enough.

I'm not tired, he says. 

And that's another signal, another part of the game. After a case, sometimes they're tired. Sometimes not.

A win for a client on a Bad Day, though. It could go either way.

Reese waits.

Oh, Harold says. Nor am I.

Reese gets up from the table, washes up at the sink.

Harold, moving around behind him, says, You'll be happy to know we have clean linen.

Oh, good, he says, and almost smiles. 

It's still new enough to trouble Reese sometimes, to make him hesitate, think he has to sneak up on it. Hide around a metaphorical corner.

Reese goes to a small space off the main room that Harold has outfitted as a crash room and first aid station. He strips as he goes, folding his clothes over one arm with care. 

The room was used as a copy room or as storage for microfiche when the library was a real library. Harold told him all about it first time they used it for something other than its newly repurposed purpose, but Reese forgets which it was. The fact fell out of his head the instant he heard it, the first time Harold reached for him with intent.

There's a full-sized bed that looks like an oversized, serviceable cot, but the mattress, though thin, is soft and firm and plush. Memory foam that remembers them both well enough.

He drops his clothes on the room's only chair and smiles again when the lights dim around him. 

Pendant lights and vintage sconces, all with amber-tinted glass that makes the room seem smaller in the physical sense and larger in Reese's imagination. He sighs and stretches out on top of the cool sheets. There are no corners and there is nothing to fear. He could be anywhere. In a hotel or a house, on an empty beach or deep inside a cave.

Harold is moving around in the outer room, tidying and straightening. Maybe planning his approach. But Reese won't have to wait long. 

A promise is a promise.

When he arrives Harold is already missing tie and waistcoat. Shirttails untucked, he's trying to see to his left cufflink but lacks, momentarily, the normal dexterity of his right hand. 

Reese takes that hand in his own and, once the cufflinks are set aside, works gently to free Harold from the rest of his clothes. 

Bear's settled, Harold says, already breathless. Reese nods and slides Harold's glasses from his face and puts them next to the cufflinks. 

The footlocker they use as a bedside table is a mini armory: inside are two disassembled rifles, ammunition, and teargas grenades zip tied together in packs of three. On top there is a small bottle of lotion. Scentless, expensive. A brand that Harold likes. 

Harold's hips are shaking. His right leg is a mass of tremors and doesn't want to support him, so Reese does, hands hot on Harold's hips to steady him and pull him in.

They kiss for a long time. 

The flicker of light from the half dozen screensavers spinning lazily in the other room could be from anything at all. A hearth, Reese believes tonight, a fire. A fire painting cave paintings on their cave wall.

Reese guides Harold carefully onto his back and props himself up beside him, letting his own right side mold to Harold's left to warm them both. Harold touches Reese's temple, the outside of one shoulder, and a sore spot above his ribs. The look on his face is more stern than tender. 

Reese knows he's a mass of bruises. Today's case was simple but did involve a lot of running, and falling down.

We should be more careful, Harold says. 

It always looks worse than it is, Reese says, and brings his body closer to Harold's. 

He kisses Harold's temple and lets his hands wander. They're both hard, have been for a while, but they're so good at this now. Between one breath and another time slows to a crawl. It takes seconds for Reese to uncap the bottle of lotion and pour some into his hands to take away the chill, but it might be more than a dozen breaths before his hands are back on Harold.

With a few long strokes Reese slicks them both and lines them up, cock to cock, shoulder to shoulder. It shouldn't feel this good. It should be awkward, but the relief that comes with the sudden surge of heat between them is incredible. Harold smiles and mutters something nonsensical, and Reese closes his eyes and transfers more of his weight onto Harold -- That's enough, John that's just right -- and starts a slow grind that's like a charged, rhythmic kiss between their bodies. 

Reese puts his free hand on Harold's thigh and begins to stroke gently. He can feel the powerful play of muscles there. His caress turns hard and sharp with every third or fourth stroke, when he works on the muscle knots. 

It's a simple trick but Harold never calls him on it. The one time he made the offer, plain and simple, Harold was furious. 

You're not my physical therapist, Mr. Reese, or my caregiver. 

He waited three days for Harold to meet him again in person.

Reese opens his eyes and smiles because Harold's eyes are glassy, he might be far away. 

Here, Harold says. Please, John.

Reese can't go three days without seeing Harold now. Three hours is difficult enough.

The thought makes him feel helpless, hopeless, and their rhythm stutters until Harold grips Reese's hips, hard, working the blunt strength of his fingers into Reese's tense low back, and starts them up again.

Never get close enough, Reese pants, never can, and he pulls them over suddenly onto their sides. 

One of Reese's arms is pinned but it doesn't matter. He takes them both in hand and strokes hard and Harold moans, drags Reese's mouth back to his own and steals all the breath from his body. Like that, light-headed, pinned, and panting, they come wet and hot and loud together. 

Reese's vision goes white and gray in the aftermath, and Harold says something that makes Reese's eyes sting, an unexpected gift on a Bad Day that thrills and frightens him and puts him under.

When he comes back to himself, Harold is looking at him. The glow from the monitors and the amber half-light paints Harold's face with strange colors. He doesn't look like the man from an hour ago and the sweat on his body is good sweat, the product of pleasure rather than a symptom of pain. 

What are you thinking about, Harold asks. 

Reese traces the light and touches the new, good sweat on Harold's face.

My back feels better, he says. 

Harold stokes up and down Reese's back once, twice, then grips low where the tension was and hums a kiss into his shoulder. Harold's voice in the dark is a sweet whisper. 

I noticed it was bothering you when you got up from the table, John. You should know by now that you can't hide from me. 

What Reese says next he says with his breath and his body. His voice isn't necessary. Not here, where Harold can hear what's in his head when they are skin to skin. 

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said on the meme, I hope the lack of quotation marks wasn't too startling, it just seemed to fit the fic.


End file.
